Suggest a feature
- Thread starter Hyronymus
- Start date
Hyronymus
Troop leader
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2003
- Messages
- 1,872
Would be nice if you plan to build a city in a marsh or something. Although I don't see why marsh is the only terrain that needs clearing in Civ3. Clearing marsh takes less than clearing jungle and yet you can build in jungle right away but not in a marsh. The dutch city of Gouda is a good example of building a city in a marsh so it is doable (and Gouda is at least 500 years old).
Lockesdonkey
Liberal Jihadist
Hyronymus said:
Gouda? Like the cheese?
It makes sense; large sections of my hometown was swamp until recently.
.thescaryworker
Builder
Don't you think that its kind of annoying (to see all of your wonders), you have to cycle through each city that has a wonder (and spy on your enemies). I am proposing that you should be able to see wonders from your in-game view (the regular one). I mean, you can supposedly see the great wall from space, so whe not see the wonders on the city?
Axl Furneaux
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2005
- Messages
- 12
I agree - the old F8 key (I think) in Civ2, showed all the wonders and where they were built - that was so useful. It is a nightmare in Civ3 to find them now
Axl Furneaux
Chieftain
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2005
- Messages
- 12
I had a sudden thought about the natural disaster front - it could open up a huge range of diplomatic options - if you were at war with someone and they suffered a disaster - you could break it off to gie them time to recover - and possibly gain cudos in the international arena for doing that - of course you could always attack them again later once they had rebuilt!
You could also send aid - in the form of money, technology, or even workers for a set period of time to assist?
Any takers?
You could also send aid - in the form of money, technology, or even workers for a set period of time to assist?
Any takers?
Lockesdonkey
Liberal Jihadist
That screen exists. I beleive that it is F7 in civ 3. I admit I discovered it by accident, but it is highly useful; I beleive they derived its structure in part from the SMAC Secret Projects Screen, since it not only states the civ that owns it, but also shows all Wonders currently in progress by all civs and the cities in which they are being built. So, let's say you are the Egyptians and have the Great Wall in Thebes; it will show a card structured somewhat like this:
Your Leaderhead
The Great Wall
Owned By: Egyptians
Located In: Thebes
Best,
TheDonkeySaysThisFeatureAlreadyExists
Your Leaderhead
The Great Wall
Owned By: Egyptians
Located In: Thebes
Best,
TheDonkeySaysThisFeatureAlreadyExists
azzacanth
Warlord
Some of these have certainly already been posted before. I guess I am just backing them up. 
Diplomacy option to cease war with a 3rd party. It sucks if you want to defend an ally, you have to also go to war with the nation they are hostile with. Shouldn't a powerful or rich 3rd party be able to bully or bribe a nation to cease war?
Cease fire and peace treaty should not be the same thing. As I recall in civ2 they were not. For one thing there would be different reputation reactions for breaking them. And sometimes you just want to fall back and recover a bit, get your people down from war weariness, and then resume the battle. You don't necessarily want to declare 20 turns of peace. And you know you can never trust the AI's peace treaties anyway.
I'm tired of polite civs attacking me out of nowhere. needs to be a better reputation / interciv relation scheme. For example one that tells me both how they feel about me, and whether they are hostile, as two separate pieces. Since they seem to be anyway.
I agree that multiple UU's would be nice. I dont know that they should all trigger GA's. But a civ will have multiple units with unique strengths that other civs will not. Like flavor units perhaps, but actually with different stats, instead of just different graphics. Then make the GA-triggering unit, even more powerful in comparison. That way each civ will have things (militarily) they are good at naturally, at different times.
Also perhaps different GA-triggering UU's for different ages, but have the ability to select, perhaps beforehand, which age you will get a GA.
Ability to name land features - couldn't this be done in SMAC? and also to share with allies the names of your land features for the purpose of common reference points. Especially in multiplayer - I don't care if the AI knows the name of a particular mountain range --- UNLESS one could make actual land agreements with the AI, like trading a "no build zone" for something, perhaps a different no build zone. (the value of this would be based on resources visible to each civ I suppose) I do this a fair amount in the type of multiplayer game I play, where I have a neighbor player and we agree on borders before our cities are even built. (not always though, since sometimes relations are forced to be strained from the beginning..)
The tech tree is also a bit silly. Who would learn the tech to work iron if they didn't have iron? Who would learn how to ride without horses? Perhaps alternate techs, for example if you didnt have metals, learn how to weave excellent armors from your native grasses or something. Of course your grass armor wouldn't be anywhere near as tough as your neighbor's swordsmen with plate steel. But it would be tougher than the cloth shirt you're stuck with otherwise.
Some things to be able to mod:
road system - some people like infinite movement railroads, others dont. I won't argue the point here (personally I like them). But it would be nice to have it moddable so those who don't like them, don't have to have them, etc. To be able to change the # of movement each type gives (with a checkbox for infinite I suppose), or even to be able to build more than just 2 types of roads. Also to have them "upgrade" from one age to another, again not necessarily vanilla, but moddable. Say in the ancient ages your roads give 2 movement, but then in the middle ages your roads are better, and they give 3. (or maybe at a particular tech advance IE engineering, or even stone road building)
frequency of golden ages - maybe someone wants to be able to trigger more than one GA per game.
number of tech ages in the game - not useful for regular stone age to present day and beyond civ, but for fantasy mods, or short time period mods, or mods with a lot more tech variety for whatever reason.
the ability to mod a completely different tech tree for each civ or at least culture group. So that one group can research certain things easily and not require, or maybe not even be able to research other things, which another group would research easily instead. different costs for different civs as well.
Again, I dont know if it would be useful for vanilla civ, but there are definitely mods that could use this.
Diplomacy option to cease war with a 3rd party. It sucks if you want to defend an ally, you have to also go to war with the nation they are hostile with. Shouldn't a powerful or rich 3rd party be able to bully or bribe a nation to cease war?
Cease fire and peace treaty should not be the same thing. As I recall in civ2 they were not. For one thing there would be different reputation reactions for breaking them. And sometimes you just want to fall back and recover a bit, get your people down from war weariness, and then resume the battle. You don't necessarily want to declare 20 turns of peace. And you know you can never trust the AI's peace treaties anyway.
I'm tired of polite civs attacking me out of nowhere. needs to be a better reputation / interciv relation scheme. For example one that tells me both how they feel about me, and whether they are hostile, as two separate pieces. Since they seem to be anyway.
I agree that multiple UU's would be nice. I dont know that they should all trigger GA's. But a civ will have multiple units with unique strengths that other civs will not. Like flavor units perhaps, but actually with different stats, instead of just different graphics. Then make the GA-triggering unit, even more powerful in comparison. That way each civ will have things (militarily) they are good at naturally, at different times.
Also perhaps different GA-triggering UU's for different ages, but have the ability to select, perhaps beforehand, which age you will get a GA.
Ability to name land features - couldn't this be done in SMAC? and also to share with allies the names of your land features for the purpose of common reference points. Especially in multiplayer - I don't care if the AI knows the name of a particular mountain range --- UNLESS one could make actual land agreements with the AI, like trading a "no build zone" for something, perhaps a different no build zone. (the value of this would be based on resources visible to each civ I suppose) I do this a fair amount in the type of multiplayer game I play, where I have a neighbor player and we agree on borders before our cities are even built. (not always though, since sometimes relations are forced to be strained from the beginning..)
The tech tree is also a bit silly. Who would learn the tech to work iron if they didn't have iron? Who would learn how to ride without horses? Perhaps alternate techs, for example if you didnt have metals, learn how to weave excellent armors from your native grasses or something. Of course your grass armor wouldn't be anywhere near as tough as your neighbor's swordsmen with plate steel. But it would be tougher than the cloth shirt you're stuck with otherwise.
Some things to be able to mod:
road system - some people like infinite movement railroads, others dont. I won't argue the point here (personally I like them). But it would be nice to have it moddable so those who don't like them, don't have to have them, etc. To be able to change the # of movement each type gives (with a checkbox for infinite I suppose), or even to be able to build more than just 2 types of roads. Also to have them "upgrade" from one age to another, again not necessarily vanilla, but moddable. Say in the ancient ages your roads give 2 movement, but then in the middle ages your roads are better, and they give 3. (or maybe at a particular tech advance IE engineering, or even stone road building)
frequency of golden ages - maybe someone wants to be able to trigger more than one GA per game.
number of tech ages in the game - not useful for regular stone age to present day and beyond civ, but for fantasy mods, or short time period mods, or mods with a lot more tech variety for whatever reason.
the ability to mod a completely different tech tree for each civ or at least culture group. So that one group can research certain things easily and not require, or maybe not even be able to research other things, which another group would research easily instead. different costs for different civs as well.
Again, I dont know if it would be useful for vanilla civ, but there are definitely mods that could use this.
Justy
Warlord
One feature that I'd like to see is more reality in the reasons for going to war. When a civ declares war on another civ give a reason for the declaration.
We declare war to:
-Expand our territory... er we mean to correct past injustices
-Regain our lost territory
-Punish [civ X] for not accepting our demands
-Punish [civ X] for attempted espionage
-Wage war on [civ X] until peace is declared with [civ Y]
-Aquire resources we need for survival
-World Domination Pact (3 or 4 civs with like-mended govs attempt to crush all other nations)
-Proxy wars, paying a civ to attack another without actually getting involved yourself.
Each declaration would have different ramifications for war weariness and reputation. The exit strategy for each war would be different.
Another aspect of the change to declaring war would be giving other civs a little heads up as to what is going on in the world. Civs declaring war on each other on a whim gets tiresome after a while. You know, I want to know why Egypt is attacking France. Are my diplomats and politicians so inane that don't see this war coming allowing me to prepare for it.
This also would help the whole idea of actual world politics in the game.
We declare war to:
-Expand our territory... er we mean to correct past injustices
-Regain our lost territory
-Punish [civ X] for not accepting our demands
-Punish [civ X] for attempted espionage
-Wage war on [civ X] until peace is declared with [civ Y]
-Aquire resources we need for survival
-World Domination Pact (3 or 4 civs with like-mended govs attempt to crush all other nations)
-Proxy wars, paying a civ to attack another without actually getting involved yourself.
Each declaration would have different ramifications for war weariness and reputation. The exit strategy for each war would be different.
Another aspect of the change to declaring war would be giving other civs a little heads up as to what is going on in the world. Civs declaring war on each other on a whim gets tiresome after a while. You know, I want to know why Egypt is attacking France. Are my diplomats and politicians so inane that don't see this war coming allowing me to prepare for it.
This also would help the whole idea of actual world politics in the game.
.azzacanth
Warlord
Justy said:
Oh yeah, and fix quitting locked trades in multiplayer game, right now it causees war. Heh. even if you can redeclare peace the same turn. Its annoying especially when the trades shouldn't have been locked in the first place. (I was in the modern era still trading my camels for one of my friends' iron... course I had all my RR by then and didnt need iron anymore.... so we were both getting useless resources)
flamescreen
Ancient Mariner
How about Orbital bombardment for the late stages? We probably have that ability already, anyway. Maybe would require a better level of SDI, protecting from it.
And how about the possibility to recruit from barbarians? They could give you random units for some gold, higher if you wanted it immediately. And another thought, an option for invading barbarians should be, not destroying your cities but receiving tribute in gold from your civ, until you "deal" with them.
And how about the possibility to recruit from barbarians? They could give you random units for some gold, higher if you wanted it immediately. And another thought, an option for invading barbarians should be, not destroying your cities but receiving tribute in gold from your civ, until you "deal" with them.
flamescreen
Ancient Mariner
How about, buing land from your opponent for a price or tribute, as in ,you can't build cities close to them, but you can build improvements, and in this case, they're considered as cities(they'd not be able to build cities near you, since they can't steal land you bought from them).
Conflicted!?
Chieftain
Note to whoever: Some astronauts were interviewed, and they said that It was not true that you could see the Great wall from space. Think of it this way, height and lengthwise, New York is bigger, so...
I agree with Hyronymous, I have always wanted the ability to ask an ai to stop killing my allies after my war is over.
I agree with Hyronymous, I have always wanted the ability to ask an ai to stop killing my allies after my war is over.
nojobnoodlez
Chieftain
Base Units (from SMAC)
Create a base unit...to represent untrained volunteers and drafts. You choose what kind of training they receive (also depends on if you have certain resources). If the city has resources nearby and is located at a barracks or fort, you could have the ability to outfit them with armor and weapons...maybe start with steel and then upgrade to iron. So a steel weapon might do 1 dmg but iron might do 2. Or a wooden shield would absorb 1 dmg but a metal shield would absorb 3. Or start with musket and update to rifle. The better upgrades or more numerous, the longer it takes the unit to be ready. Could allow for multiple units based on a single unit's graphic icon (steel sword, iron sword, helmeted, with or without shields, armored/not armored, etc). Also would allow you to choose how you want to upgrade units. For example you may not want your spearmen to upgrade to pikemen...so turn them into horsemen instead if you have the time and money. Could also be used to create levels of technology independent of required era advancement (Metal Working I (Steel)>Metal Working II (Iron)).
City Population Sliders
It'd be great to have control over what the individual cities are doing. Rather than all cities being good in production/cultural/scientific/military/commerce/etc., you set what you want the population to concentrate on. If you want it to be an industrial giant, then science and culture should suffer. If you want to churn out units constantly, then other areas should suffer. Bonuses/rules/requirements could be tied in with gov't type to greatly expand options and playability.
Wonders
Limit the number of wonders a city can hold. Based only upon the terrain, sometimes I'll have a city with a dozen+ wonders in it. Maybe limit it to 1 wonder per city per age. Also introduce civ- and gov't specific wondors, improvements, and units. That would greatly increase the importance of choosing which civ and gov't you want to play as.
Royal Families
Mentioned this in a previous post. Possibilities are endless but could be used to achieve a new type of diplomatic victory. Could open all sorts of diplomatic and espionage options in negotiations such as Claim Throne by birth right, royal marriages, deaths, births & heirs, murder, abdications, blackmail, ransoms, etc.
Mass battles (similar to CTP or MOO2)
For me, the most time consuming part of Civ 3 is dealing with all the miltary units each turn I'm at war, especially late in the game. Instead of unit on unit battles, how about just 1 large battle. Unit stacks take forever to deal with in all the Civ games. If I send about 50 calvary to attack 10 fortified pikemen, just make it 1 big fight containing all the units from both stacks
Population & Migration
One of the biggest faults I have with Civ 3 is early exploration and colonization. Usually by about the end of the Ancient/Medieval era you have a map of the entire world and a ridiculous number of large cities. You've probably gotten several technologies, some warriors, and lots of gold along the way to encourage you to explore. But it's way too easy to just send a unit half-way across the world or create a new city in a manner of turns.
To try and avoid this, what about the introduction of a controlled migration and population process. Instead of sending a single settler unit to found a new city, what if you had to send waves of them (ala Universalis Europa) to a certain area. You set a migration marker/waypoint (or possibly even use a leader unit), and then each new settler unit you have built will traverse to the nearest marker you have created automatically. Maybe after a certain number of settlers have arrived, a city would be formed.
Taking the migration concept further, you could even scrap having to manually build settlers altogether. Based on the amout of food you produce in your city, you would just have an option that creates migrants automatically (Immigration) so that once the marker is set up you don't have to do any more work, just wait. Over time your food and population increases. Instead of your city increasing 1 more size, a migrator/pilgrim/whatever is sent to the nearest marker.
To create markers though, you would first need to have scouted out the land - how about only a certain kind of unit could achieve this. An expeditionary unit that could scout terrain and create migration markers. Maybe even a leader unit that you could build. But it wouldn't be a move 1 tile/1 turn kind of unit. It would take a period of turns to work. You move the unit into an unknown area and it would take maybe 4-5 turns to discover that area. In the process the expedition disperses or returns to your capital, but the marker/waypoint is staked out and you can see the surrounding land. From then on you could send any unit into that area to safeguard your marker and lay claim.
You could even use that same ideology to create military units. Rather than each city being able to 'build' units with production, have each city set aside a percentage of their population (via a handy Population Slider) that would be designated specifically for military purposes. Set up a recruitment leader or unit in one of your cities or an outlying fort and just wait. In time as the population of your cities increase in population (and depending on your military percentage) you would produce a base-unit that you could then choose to train as a spearman or warrior or horseman or whatever, depending on resources.
Create a base unit...to represent untrained volunteers and drafts. You choose what kind of training they receive (also depends on if you have certain resources). If the city has resources nearby and is located at a barracks or fort, you could have the ability to outfit them with armor and weapons...maybe start with steel and then upgrade to iron. So a steel weapon might do 1 dmg but iron might do 2. Or a wooden shield would absorb 1 dmg but a metal shield would absorb 3. Or start with musket and update to rifle. The better upgrades or more numerous, the longer it takes the unit to be ready. Could allow for multiple units based on a single unit's graphic icon (steel sword, iron sword, helmeted, with or without shields, armored/not armored, etc). Also would allow you to choose how you want to upgrade units. For example you may not want your spearmen to upgrade to pikemen...so turn them into horsemen instead if you have the time and money. Could also be used to create levels of technology independent of required era advancement (Metal Working I (Steel)>Metal Working II (Iron)).
City Population Sliders
It'd be great to have control over what the individual cities are doing. Rather than all cities being good in production/cultural/scientific/military/commerce/etc., you set what you want the population to concentrate on. If you want it to be an industrial giant, then science and culture should suffer. If you want to churn out units constantly, then other areas should suffer. Bonuses/rules/requirements could be tied in with gov't type to greatly expand options and playability.
Wonders
Limit the number of wonders a city can hold. Based only upon the terrain, sometimes I'll have a city with a dozen+ wonders in it. Maybe limit it to 1 wonder per city per age. Also introduce civ- and gov't specific wondors, improvements, and units. That would greatly increase the importance of choosing which civ and gov't you want to play as.
Royal Families
Mentioned this in a previous post. Possibilities are endless but could be used to achieve a new type of diplomatic victory. Could open all sorts of diplomatic and espionage options in negotiations such as Claim Throne by birth right, royal marriages, deaths, births & heirs, murder, abdications, blackmail, ransoms, etc.
Mass battles (similar to CTP or MOO2)
For me, the most time consuming part of Civ 3 is dealing with all the miltary units each turn I'm at war, especially late in the game. Instead of unit on unit battles, how about just 1 large battle. Unit stacks take forever to deal with in all the Civ games. If I send about 50 calvary to attack 10 fortified pikemen, just make it 1 big fight containing all the units from both stacks
Population & Migration
One of the biggest faults I have with Civ 3 is early exploration and colonization. Usually by about the end of the Ancient/Medieval era you have a map of the entire world and a ridiculous number of large cities. You've probably gotten several technologies, some warriors, and lots of gold along the way to encourage you to explore. But it's way too easy to just send a unit half-way across the world or create a new city in a manner of turns.
To try and avoid this, what about the introduction of a controlled migration and population process. Instead of sending a single settler unit to found a new city, what if you had to send waves of them (ala Universalis Europa) to a certain area. You set a migration marker/waypoint (or possibly even use a leader unit), and then each new settler unit you have built will traverse to the nearest marker you have created automatically. Maybe after a certain number of settlers have arrived, a city would be formed.
Taking the migration concept further, you could even scrap having to manually build settlers altogether. Based on the amout of food you produce in your city, you would just have an option that creates migrants automatically (Immigration) so that once the marker is set up you don't have to do any more work, just wait. Over time your food and population increases. Instead of your city increasing 1 more size, a migrator/pilgrim/whatever is sent to the nearest marker.
To create markers though, you would first need to have scouted out the land - how about only a certain kind of unit could achieve this. An expeditionary unit that could scout terrain and create migration markers. Maybe even a leader unit that you could build. But it wouldn't be a move 1 tile/1 turn kind of unit. It would take a period of turns to work. You move the unit into an unknown area and it would take maybe 4-5 turns to discover that area. In the process the expedition disperses or returns to your capital, but the marker/waypoint is staked out and you can see the surrounding land. From then on you could send any unit into that area to safeguard your marker and lay claim.
You could even use that same ideology to create military units. Rather than each city being able to 'build' units with production, have each city set aside a percentage of their population (via a handy Population Slider) that would be designated specifically for military purposes. Set up a recruitment leader or unit in one of your cities or an outlying fort and just wait. In time as the population of your cities increase in population (and depending on your military percentage) you would produce a base-unit that you could then choose to train as a spearman or warrior or horseman or whatever, depending on resources.
It is hard to suggest meaningful features that might be implemented given the Firaxis philosophy. With Civ3 we saw the dumbing down of the game as necessary to make the AI competitive. This led to a truely mind numbing play experience. With Civ4, it appears that the game will be further dumbed down to produce appeal with the low common denomition of gamer in an effort to produce more sales. Sigh.
Anything I might suggest doing would be contrary to that philosophy. By way of protest, I suggest adding complexity in any form at all cost as a general principal.
For specifics, I suggest implementation of a unit design workshop similar to SMAC and a combat system similar to Panzerleader II, making it virtually impossibe to conquer the world, designing a political system that encompasses religion and ethnic tensions- with war as an extension of politics, not as a means to its own end, implementation of leaders in less abstract terms, individual rulers for the civs, i.e. somewhat random generation of kings/political leaders/dynastys each with abilities that modify the entire civ while they are in place, automatic trade routes that are essential to economies-subject to raid and interdiction, greatly enhanced naval elements, the addition of two key sub-eras...the Age of Sail and the Age of Colonization, colonization rules, regional capitals and governors, a true solution to infinite city sprawl, more emphasis on non-city tiles as key elements of territory, meaningful treatments of military bases, airfields ports and fortifications.
I could go on and on but what is the point?
Anything I might suggest doing would be contrary to that philosophy. By way of protest, I suggest adding complexity in any form at all cost as a general principal.
For specifics, I suggest implementation of a unit design workshop similar to SMAC and a combat system similar to Panzerleader II, making it virtually impossibe to conquer the world, designing a political system that encompasses religion and ethnic tensions- with war as an extension of politics, not as a means to its own end, implementation of leaders in less abstract terms, individual rulers for the civs, i.e. somewhat random generation of kings/political leaders/dynastys each with abilities that modify the entire civ while they are in place, automatic trade routes that are essential to economies-subject to raid and interdiction, greatly enhanced naval elements, the addition of two key sub-eras...the Age of Sail and the Age of Colonization, colonization rules, regional capitals and governors, a true solution to infinite city sprawl, more emphasis on non-city tiles as key elements of territory, meaningful treatments of military bases, airfields ports and fortifications.
I could go on and on but what is the point?
dh_epic
Cold War Veteran
For what it's worth, Soren never said he'd dumb down Civ 3 for Civ 4. He said the level of complexity will be approximately the same -- just in a different way.
dh_epic said:
Oh well they said they wanted to make the game appeal to a broader range of gamer, if this is to be accomplished without a dumbing process I will be pleased and suprised.
They appear to be following a marketing strategy that assumes that most past fans will purchase the game in any case, so get new sales by eliminating elements of play that would be found daunting by casual gamers.
I would define casual gamers as those impressed by visuals and sounds and distressed by complexities and learning curves.
I would further define casual gamers as those pleased by such as big freaking gun syndrome and cursed by short attention spans.
These gamers are essentially anti-civ! What Firaxis is doing is trying to create a vegitarian hamburger of a game. I ask "where's the beef?"
This game is being produced in the modern business mania that defines success as wildly unsupportable growth. It is not concerned acceptable for a company to produce a product that happily satisfys a percentage of a market. It must expand. Stock prices must be inflated to create the appearance of success so that CEOs can cash in over the long term. Merger mania. Briggs & management is just looking to mimic larger corporate legends. In the effort to be a big fish in the small pond of game design Firaxis is sacrifcing all that was special about Civ all its potential in a classical frenzy to cash in. Well, whatever happened to the idea that you create a good product and let the money take care of itself? Greed ate that concept, its all about making money now.
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